The Confessions

"I cancelled plans with a friend who I knew was going through a difficult time because I simply did not have the emotional energy. I said I was unwell. She said she understood. She was dealing with something serious and I chose comfort over showing up."

"I did not stand up for a friend when a group of people were being unkind about them behind their back. I stayed quiet and let it happen because I was new to the group and afraid. My silence was complicity. They eventually told me what had been said and I pretended I had not been there."

"I ignored a homeless man who asked me for help on a cold night because I was in a hurry. Not the first time I have walked past someone in need. But that particular night, the particular cold, the particular look on his face. I think about it still."

"I wrote something unkind anonymously online about someone I knew personally. It was mild by internet standards but I knew it would reach them and I knew exactly which insecurity it would land on. It was calculated. I am not that person anymore but I was that person then."

"I told a child their drawing was not very good. They were five. They had worked hard on it and showed it to me with such pride. I do not know why I said what I said. Their face changed completely. I have never forgotten the speed with which I extinguished that small joy."

"I laughed at a joke made at someone else expense when I should have said something. The person being laughed at was in the room. They laughed too but their eyes did not. I laughed anyway because I wanted to belong to the group more than I wanted to be decent."

"I have a habit of arriving slightly late to things so I never have to stand somewhere waiting alone. It means other people always have to wait for me. I have never acknowledged this. I have let people think I am simply disorganised when in reality it is a small daily selfishness."

"I pretended not to see an elderly woman struggling with her shopping on a bus. I was tired and did not want to give up my seat. Someone else got up eventually. She thanked them warmly. I sat there for six more stops feeling like the worst person on the bus."

"I have a colleague whose laugh I have always found irritating. Over several years I have made small comments that I knew would make others find it irritating too. I successfully made someone self conscious about their own laugh. I realised what I had done when I noticed they had stopped laughing freely."

"I made a comment about a colleagues appearance once, very quietly, to a mutual friend. I thought it was funny. It was repeated. It got back to them. They never confronted me. They just became quieter around me and eventually requested a transfer. I never apologised."